Coming to a Kindle near you very soon

Heh, thanks. I’m lucky to know interesting and smart people – Ronnie for the cover, david/mupwangle for the title :)

Ready for a really long answer? Here we go :)

First and foremost, I think there’s a very narrow window of opportunity in book publishing just now. We’re seeing what we saw with MP3 music, a rush of early excitement with people actively seeking out new, independent artists and taking a punt on the odd download. I think that window will shut, and shut soon, for several reasons.

With ebooks, there’s nothing to stop an author typing THE END and uploading the whole thing to Amazon without even re-reading the first draft, let alone editing it. And if you wander around the cheaper titles in the ebook stores, it does look that many authors have done just that, pausing only to bash out a quick cover in Windows Paint.

I’m not suggesting that all, or even most, ebook authors are like that. I’m not: Coffin Dodgers went through eight drafts, a process that took nearly a year and a half, and I’ve spent far too much time scouring the digital version to look for formatting errors and typos. I’ll be mortified if anyone finds an enormous plot hole or some kind of howler. But there’s a lot of dross out there, and the more people who read stories about epublishing success stories, the more bad stuff will be dug out of drawers and digitised.

My belief is this: sooner or later that kind of stuff will clog the ebook stores, and the shops will either make it more difficult for self-publishers or people will simply stop looking at the independent stuff. So if I think Coffin Dodgers is good – and I do – then the time to publish it is sooner rather than later.

For me, the other reason to self publish is because I don’t think Coffin Dodgers deserves to lie in a corner of a hard disk. I really enjoyed writing it – even when I was rewriting bits for the eighth draft – and I’ve grown really fond of the characters and of the world I’ve created. I don’t think the book is for everyone, but I think some people will get as much of a kick out of reading it as I did writing it. Given the cost of getting it out there is effectively zero, why keep it hidden away?

I’ve been told that Coffin Dodgers isn’t the sort of book to write if you want to make lots of money: funny thrillers are a hard sell (how many funny-thriller writers can you name who aren’t living on tins of beans?). And I took that advice very seriously, spent a lot of time thinking about more commercial, heavyweight stories, and came up with a story idea that I know is a solid-gold belter. I’ve spent months researching it and plotting, and it’s the sort of thing that will have people offering me big sacks of cash.
It’s also making me miserable.

It’s a really powerful idea, the kind of thing that makes people’s blood go cold when you tell them about it, and I don’t doubt that I’m capable of doing it. The plot is twisty, the characters well-rounded, the central event heartbreaking. But it’s just no fun. At no point can it feature a rabid, stiletto-hurling crossdresser or inept terrorists who RPG the wrong house.

A sequel to Coffin Dodgers could, and probably will.

In November, I wrote this:
I think my time would be better spent writing something that will sell rather than doing a half-arsed marketing job that might generate a couple of hundred quid somewhere down the line. Self promotion, sadly, isn’t one of my talents.

I think I was wrong. Not about self-promotion – I suck at that, and probably will do a half-arsed marketing job – but about spending time on something that’s much more likely to sell. I’d much rather punt Coffin Dodgers and write more in that world, with the risk that I’ll sell five copies, than spend a year or two writing a sure-fire bestseller that makes me really unhappy. What’s the point of that if it’s no fun?

Although, y’know, it’d be nice to be Ian Rankin too.